It’s sometimes surprising when a story idea just suddenly comes together.

I had spent the good portion of two years hammering out an idea for a Christmas novel.  Most books that focus on the holidays tend to be ones that were specifically geared towards the children’s market, or  accounts of non-fiction that serve as self-help or inspirational. In honesty, the idea of writing a novel or a book of short stories had been in my mind for a few years. So when I started to think of an idea, I decided to start a journal deconstructing, and eventually reconstructing Christmas and what it meant to me.

One of the biggest things I remembered most about Christmas of course was always about the music. Growing up the Boney M Christmas album was the album that played in our household. Eventually, other artists would crop up making Christmas interpretations of their own. They would be added to the music collection, but in the end it was that Christmas album that would be the mainstay memory mentally.

Unfortunately, one of those Christmases also yielded a bad memory. I was younger and quite keen on what I was developing at the time what was going to be a long career writing and at the time poetry was what I had been drawn to. I had the bright idea that I would include a Christmas poem in every card I wrote. And for the majority of the cards I had written that particular Christmas, each one had a different poem related to the season.

Until my father opened up his Christmas card and read what I had put together inside. His first question was if I had written a poem in every Christmas card I wrote out. When I answered yes, and asked what the issue could have been, his reply was “if I was a parent of the friend that you gave that card to and would have read that I would be thinking things.”

(Keep in mind that these were Christmas poems, nothing else. I mean really who fucking says that to a kid anyways?)

It left me stuck in sharing my writing with the rest of the known world for quite sometime. To be told that my poetry about Christmas would be misconstrued as something else, made me put down the pen. It would be longer before I’d be able to share my writing again for some time. It also made me thankful for the people that did believe in my writing, who pushed me to work harder and keep up with the craft.

Keeping the Christmas journal helped bring out some small story fragments, all unfinished, all still fragments. It wasn’t until I had coffee with a friend of mine only a few weeks ago that the first part of the story finally came together. Two people, the Christmas season, having a serious conversation on Christmas Eve. With the characters already partially in place and being developed, it was enough to begin the creative process. I finally had a point A. Now all I needed to do was get to a point B. And while it probably won’t be ready for awhile, it’s reassuring to know that it sometimes happens in the least likely of places.

To be continued….